LJ Idol Season 7 Week 13 Inside Baseball
Feb. 9th, 2011 08:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
puppetmakerMy brain is awash with trivia and minutia about a lot of subjects. I have a knack of retaining what I read. I don’t have a photographic memory but more of a cataloguing memory and it holds on to details like grim death. I have won trivia contests with the stuff in my head.
Since I was little, if I was interested in something I would research it to its last fact. I was good at research papers in school. For example I became interested in Greek myth when I was in the third grade. By the end of my reading I had covered Greek myth, religion, politics, philosophy and society and taken a stab at reading Plato. I didn’t take another stab at it until High School. But I could answer just about any question an adult could put to me about the subject.
I was informed in the fourth grade that doing this was weird. I even remember which kid told me that. One of those crystal clear moments in time that has not faded. I went home and told my mother and father I was a freak. They sat me down and we had a long talk about my brain and that is was not that odd considering who my parents were. They made me proud of my mental abilities. So I continued to use my brain to absorb knowledge.
A lot of things that I start with would lead me to tangents into new subjects that I would learn about. I was myth crazy as a kid and our library had this great series of books called “Tales of a (insert nation here) Grandmother” which covered the myths of various nations. I started noticing similar types of myths in different countries. Most countries have a flood myth. There is usually a myth about the sun and the seasons. That led me to comparing and contrasting myths and looking for patterns.
Years later I was working on a new show in Atlanta as the stage manager. After reading the script I went to the playwright and informed him that he had an error in the myth he was using. He got huffy about it until his significant other who happened to be from that country backed me up on what I was saying and was impressed that I knew that much about his country and its past considering there was next to no chance I was from there.
When I was at Del Rey Books, I got to work on Star Wars. I read my way through the New Jedi Order books to catch up with the current manuscripts. The editor was amazed how much I maintained from what I read and that I could read the new manuscripts and outlines coming in and catch things that didn’t jive with what we had established mostly because of the publishing schedule was so fast that each author would be getting at least two of the books only in the approved outline stage. That saved some time on the books when they were at Lucas-films for approval.
Peter uses me as a resource about things all the time. He asks if I know about whatever and if I do I give him what information I have on the topic. I keep him up on sports and politics. Occasionally the Daily Show will talk about something new to him so I give him what I know on the topic that I either read or heard on NPR.
I still research things to death when I get interested in something. I have found that discovering the information is sometimes more fun than the information itself.
Caroline is showing the same tendency. She gets into a subject and reads all she can find on the topic. It was dragons and dinos. Now it is big cats. She also has started to read myths and folktales and poetry. She does seem retain the knowledge because the last time we were at the zoo, she was spouting facts and trivia about the big cats we were seeing. I hope she continues her thirst for knowledge of all things.
This has been my entry for this weeks LJ Idol. One trivia fact about me is that I love mathematics especially Aristotelian Math and imaginary numbers
Since I was little, if I was interested in something I would research it to its last fact. I was good at research papers in school. For example I became interested in Greek myth when I was in the third grade. By the end of my reading I had covered Greek myth, religion, politics, philosophy and society and taken a stab at reading Plato. I didn’t take another stab at it until High School. But I could answer just about any question an adult could put to me about the subject.
I was informed in the fourth grade that doing this was weird. I even remember which kid told me that. One of those crystal clear moments in time that has not faded. I went home and told my mother and father I was a freak. They sat me down and we had a long talk about my brain and that is was not that odd considering who my parents were. They made me proud of my mental abilities. So I continued to use my brain to absorb knowledge.
A lot of things that I start with would lead me to tangents into new subjects that I would learn about. I was myth crazy as a kid and our library had this great series of books called “Tales of a (insert nation here) Grandmother” which covered the myths of various nations. I started noticing similar types of myths in different countries. Most countries have a flood myth. There is usually a myth about the sun and the seasons. That led me to comparing and contrasting myths and looking for patterns.
Years later I was working on a new show in Atlanta as the stage manager. After reading the script I went to the playwright and informed him that he had an error in the myth he was using. He got huffy about it until his significant other who happened to be from that country backed me up on what I was saying and was impressed that I knew that much about his country and its past considering there was next to no chance I was from there.
When I was at Del Rey Books, I got to work on Star Wars. I read my way through the New Jedi Order books to catch up with the current manuscripts. The editor was amazed how much I maintained from what I read and that I could read the new manuscripts and outlines coming in and catch things that didn’t jive with what we had established mostly because of the publishing schedule was so fast that each author would be getting at least two of the books only in the approved outline stage. That saved some time on the books when they were at Lucas-films for approval.
Peter uses me as a resource about things all the time. He asks if I know about whatever and if I do I give him what information I have on the topic. I keep him up on sports and politics. Occasionally the Daily Show will talk about something new to him so I give him what I know on the topic that I either read or heard on NPR.
I still research things to death when I get interested in something. I have found that discovering the information is sometimes more fun than the information itself.
Caroline is showing the same tendency. She gets into a subject and reads all she can find on the topic. It was dragons and dinos. Now it is big cats. She also has started to read myths and folktales and poetry. She does seem retain the knowledge because the last time we were at the zoo, she was spouting facts and trivia about the big cats we were seeing. I hope she continues her thirst for knowledge of all things.
This has been my entry for this weeks LJ Idol. One trivia fact about me is that I love mathematics especially Aristotelian Math and imaginary numbers
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no subject
Date: 2011-02-09 02:34 pm (UTC)It wasn't until high school and college that I really learned to get along with my peers. Before that, I preferred the company of adults...in elementary school, the teachers would tell me to go away and play because I liked sitting with them at Recess.
It works out better as an adult though especially in an editing situation.
I hope no one's mean to Caroline.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-09 08:33 pm (UTC)Thanks for reading.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-09 04:40 pm (UTC)He researches EVERY details out of everything...AND REMEMBERS it.
I research a lot but...in some ways, I have a horrible memory. Always have. Several of my siblings can remember EVERYTHING. My dad has a photographic memory.
I have to sit down with flashcards EVEN NOW, in COLLEGE and drill myself and I still forget things.
People like you amaze me so much. I wish there was a way to be like you!!!
How old is your daughter?
no subject
Date: 2011-02-09 08:34 pm (UTC)I wish I could teach others but I can't since this is just how my brain works.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-09 07:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-09 08:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-09 08:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-10 06:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-10 04:56 pm (UTC)AW
no subject
Date: 2011-02-10 05:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-10 11:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 02:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-13 12:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-13 03:26 pm (UTC)I hope Caroline continues her thirst for knowledge as well. Learning is so much fun :D
no subject
Date: 2011-02-14 03:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-15 10:44 pm (UTC)I'm kind of like that too. I like doing a lot of research into one particular subject and learning lots of things about it, but I suck more with general knowledge.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-15 11:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-16 01:41 am (UTC)I would get interested in a subject and hyper focus on it and learn everything there is to know about it. I always sound like a know it all when correcting people, so I try to let the small things slide...but it's so hard when I really do know so much about certain things.
I amaze my boyfriend with my knowledge of dog breeds for instance. We can be at the dog park, he points to an odd dog and I can name it. To prove myself right, I look it up and show him a picture on my phone. I've never been wrong. It's always the absurd breeds no one ever knows of too.
I've always been this way with retaining knowledge, and I have come to enjoy it :)